All in good fun, prove you're a cranky old DC fan

[Jim Kelly]

[rant]When I was a kid (around seven or eight years old) and really getting into comic books and trying to figure out how they were made, there were no books on comic books. There was a big book in our school library that was full of activities and had several pages on cartooning, but that didn't explain the process for how comic books were made.

In my kid mind, trying to figure out what the black lines and the little coloured dots were all about, I had the theory that the black lines kept the colours in. When they printed the comic book, they needed to have those black lines or else the coloured dots would all spill out. So black lines were very important. I was amazed whenever there were pictures where the black lines weren't keeping the colours in--for example in DENNIS THE MENACE by Hank Ketcham, he had gaps in the ink lines where the colours should have spilled out (look at Ketcham's necks for example)--his inking style was what I would compare later with Dick Giordano.

Even after I was able to learn more about how comic books were made (thanks to THE AMAZING WORLD OF SUPERMAN [Metropolis Edition] (1973)), I still felt that those black lines were important and a fundamental element in what made comic art comic art.

That's a long explanation for why I can't stand a lot of the current comics. Even when I find a comic book that interests me and has good writing, I'm disturbed by the fact that some colouring artist with an electronic device has gone in and converted all the black lines to other colours. On top of which this person has filled in the spaces with colour shading that's supposed to make it look like the pages were painted--even though they clearly weren't painted, it's just a computer program.

I can't help but look at the pages and try to picture what the actual pencilled page (if there was one) and the actual inked page (if there was one) had looked like before this person ruined the whole thing with all that colour that adds nothing to telling the story. It's like they don't want the page to look like it's a comic book page--or to use all the conventions that were established over generations for the visual language of comic books.

Black india ink was the life-blood of comics. When I bought TARZAN by Joe Kubert, if there was a scene of blood pouring from a wound, Joe would use solid black ink to represent the blood. That blew me away--it meant so much more that the blood was black. If Joe had merely outlined the blood and the colour separator filled it in with red (magenta + yellow in the printing), it wouldn't be as visceral. There was something about the stark blackness that meant more. Today, some colouring artist would go in and convert the black to red, as if that somehow made the art any better.

Today's comic books just aggravate me so much with these ridiculous decisions that interfere with the dynamic immediacy of comic book story telling, so it becomes psychological torment and not entertainment.[/rant]

[Alan2099]

The dramatic realistic lighting style in comics isn't exactly one I'm a fan of either. I liked the brighter, bolder, more solid colors. It made the artwork pop more and gave everything a larger than life feel.

[j9ac9k]

The dramatic realistic lighting style in comics isn't exactly one I'm a fan of either. I liked the brighter, bolder, more solid colors. It made the artwork pop more and gave everything a larger than life feel.

It's quite the perfect sentiment coming from someone using Captain Ultra as their pfp

[Sutekh]

In my kid mind, trying to figure out what the black lines and the little coloured dots were all about, I had the theory that the black lines kept the colours in. When they printed the comic book, they needed to have those black lines or else the coloured dots would all spill out. So black lines were very important. I was amazed whenever there were pictures where the black lines weren't keeping the colours in--for example in DENNIS THE MENACE by Hank Ketcham, he had gaps in the ink lines where the colours should have spilled out (look at Ketcham's necks for example)--his inking style was what I would compare later with Dick Giordano.

When the Champions Online MMO came out, I posted some screenshots to guildmates in other games and they were like, "WTF is with those lines!" and I simply had not noticed, since it 'looked natural to me', that the graphics designers for the games had created outlines around the characters, just like the black lines around comic book characters on the page! It was very cool, and looked totally natural to me, but took my friends, raised on EverQuest and WoW graphics, and with no comic-book-reading background to say, "Hey, this looks wrong!"

It's funny how subjective that sort of thing can be. What seemed familiar and 'right' and 'comic-book-y' to my eye was all wrong and weird looking to them!

[Jim Kelly]

Contrary to CHASING AMY, inkers don't just trace an outline of the figure. It's a highly developed skill. Two of the greatest inkers were Murphy Anderson and Dick Giordano who represent different styles of inking. With Murphy he tended to model the figure (shape it) using such techniques as feathering. While Giordano used line weight more to bring out the figure on the page. With line weight, the line thickens or thins depending where the light is imagined to be coming from.

Even artists who seem deceptively simple, like Charles M. Schulz, used sophisticated inking techniques. Let's say you have a round head like Charlie Brown's and the light is supposed to be coming from the left side, so the line on the extreme left is thinnest but as it undulates it becomes thickest on the right side, furthest away from the light.

There's also spotting the blacks, best seen in artists influenced by Noel Sickles, Frank Robbins and Milt Caniff. As in film noir, the art depends on the contrast of light and shadow (Tim Sale was great at spotting the blacks). Those intense blacks contrast with the areas of light (chiaroscuro).

The great masters of inking had perfect control over the brush. Someone like Lou Fine or Kurt Schaffenberger could create these beautifully flowing lines that undulate and render wonderfully the outline of the form. The shape of a woman's leg for example. Or the lushness of the hair (using feathering and spotting the blacks).

If a colouring artist comes in and masks all that or replaces it--then the inker's great skill is wasted. I wonder if modern inkers even bother anymore to develop their skills with pen and brush--and their use of such effects as zip-a-tone and ben day--when they know the page is just going to be handed over to the colouring department who will make all their efforts pointless.

[The Darknight Detective]

Two of the greatest inkers were Murphy Anderson and Dick Giordano who represent different styles of inking. With Murphy he tended to model the figure (shape it) using such techniques as feathering. While Giordano used line weight more to bring out the figure on the page. With line weight, the line thickens or thins depending where the light is imagined to be coming from.

Which is why those two have been my favorite inkers since the '70s. They had the ability to make a mediocre artist look good and a good one great.

[Sutekh]

Contrary to CHASING AMY, inkers don't just trace an outline of the figure. It's a highly developed skill. {SNIP}

I learn so much here. Thanks for the in-depth info on a subject of comic-book art I never really appreciated like I should have!

[Riv86672]

Which is why those two have been my favorite inkers since the '70s. They had the ability to make a mediocre artist look good and a good one great.

^^^I was always a Terry Austin fan. That guy was incredible.

Also, John Workman was the first letterer I ever geeked out over.
His style, it jumped off the page.
I especially liked it on Morrison’s Doom Patrol. IMHO he added as much to the book’s visuals as Richard Case.

[The Darknight Detective]

^^^I was always a Terry Austin fan. That guy was incredible.

Also, John Workman was the first letterer I ever geeked out over.
His style, it jumped off the page.
I especially liked it on Morrison’s Doom Patrol. IMHO he added as much to the book’s visuals as Richard Case.

Agree about Austin, who was working on my favorite comics when I first started reading them. As for Workman, his work really did stand out among his competition.

[j9ac9k]

In terms of inkers, Frank Miller never looked as good on DD as when he was inked by Klaus Jansen. And while I like Jurgens as a penciller, when paired with Art Thibert they create some of my favorite art ever.

[Jim Kelly]

Many years ago (although it doesn't seem that long to me), I took a course in book design. Our teacher was (and maybe still is) a much in demand book designer--designing fonts and other graphic elements of books for publishers--and he told us in all truth that the thing which inspired him as a boy was comic books and the lettering in those comics. While other people might admire the stories or the panel art, what captured him was the hand lettering. And that prompted him to pursue his passion.

[Jim Kelly]

While I'm at it, I should recommend two books that I have in my library which are very good: THE DC COMICS GUIDE TO INKING COMICS (2003) by Klaus Janson and THE DC COMICS GUIDE TO COLORING AND LETTERING COMICS (2004) by Mark Chiarello and Todd Klein. There was another book on writing (I believe it was written by Dennis O'Neil), but I never bought that one.

[Restingvoice]

The Waynes didn't walk down a dark scary alley, Joe Chill jumped out of the alley to shoot them

[j9ac9k]

The Waynes didn't walk down a dark scary alley, Joe Chill jumped out of the alley to shoot them

Is that what originally happened? Were they just gunned down in the middle of the street?

[Marilee]

Just for clarification, reading since the late 60's. Agree with most everything in this thread so far. And my remarks are more about superhero comics and not just DC comics... That said:

Hate, hate, hate the multi-issue, highly decompressed story-telling found in comics now. Back in the day, a two-parter was amazing (the occasionally three- or four-parter was for extra-special stories, of which so much happened that it could change the entire direction of books). I grew up with comics that might have two or three complete stories in them, not "part 1 of 8" or some such thing... I admit, it might be due to the way comics were distributed back then (where you got them off spinner racks in local stores, and not your LCS), but today's stories, with the extreme decompression... Seriously, in some cases, 22 pages and *nothing* of consequence happens... It's nuts. Over in the Batman forum, there's a thread about best batman story ever. Mine were two stories that wouldn't even fill a whole issue now (let alone in the 70's when they were published). But they both hit me harder than any of the longer, so-called "more complex" stories you see nowadays (one was the first comic book story I ever cried at the end of, so it had that going for it).

And speaking of longer storylines, as I said, they were generally used to for big effects, or to tell complete stories unto themselves (like the first 12-issue maxi-series, Camelot 3000). You look at the Great Darkness Saga, which took 5 issues of the LSH, or the Judas Contract, which took 3 regular issues and 1 annual from the NTT, and those stories had impact... It seems nowadays, 4-5 issues means there's been a shift from day to night... (sorry, that's a bit sarcastic... maybe).

Two, multiple splash pages in a single issue... Darn it all, splash pages are reserved for the 1st page and maybe... *maybe* once in the middle of the issue... When every other page is a bloody splash page, you know decompression is just want the story is going for... I get that splash pages allow for the artist to show off their talents... But man... Waste of space.

Three, The way the term "retroactive continuity" (ret-con) has been mangled... Originally, it was where something interesting was inserted in the past of the character, that really didn't change any of the previous stories shown with the character... Now it just the easy way for the current writer to totally change something he/she wants to get rid of... (of course, there's really only a couple of good uses of ret-cons I liked, like the Anatomy Lesson from Swamp Thing, and some of the changes with the JSA... Otherwise...)

Okay... I better stop... The more I think about this... The more irritated I get...